


Love Overgrows a Rock

by mautadite



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 00:35:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3549452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mautadite/pseuds/mautadite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one is that surprised, to tell it true. It’s always been Ruby and Sapphire, together.</p><p>(Ruby and Sapphire take each other, and the gems protect the Earth.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Overgrows a Rock

**Author's Note:**

> HOW ABOUT THAT DOUBLE EPISODE, HUH?
> 
> Title from Eric Roach’s poem of the same name.

Rose Quartz’s hair turns into a light mauve in the darkness, but she’s still bright enough to burn, and her eyes are as piercing as her gem. She stares down at Ruby from a height that is almost twice her own, and that makes her want to draw herself up higher.

They aren’t very far from the Kindergarten, and haven’t been gone for long, but Ruby’s palm is already beginning to itch.

“Do you have an answer, Ruby?” Rose asks, voice kind and not at all insistent. Ruby knows that she must want her reply, though. It’s been days since she first came to her with it. “Are you with us?”

Ruby doesn’t meet her eyes; she finds it hard to do so. There’s something about Rose Quartz that’s so… overwhelming. Not in the way some other things are, like a gem grazing against her own in her hand, or the forever of blue. Rose is so much goodness, all at once.

Ruby avoids her eyes and gives the answer she always knew she would.

“I’ll do it if Sapphire will.”

She feels her eyes skipping away, across the rocks and jagged peaks, all the way to Kindergarten. She misses her already.

*

It takes her a while to get used to Earth. The music here is different, and all the humans fretting to and fro across the surface add to the discord. Not unlike the giant lifeforms that had proliferated across the Earth during the years of first contact. Sapphire misses them, though, however jarring their song might have been. She thinks that she would miss the humans too, were they all to disappear.

Ruby comes scampering up the hill where she sits, overlooking the field. Sapphire brightens, and her humming dies away on her lips. She’s supposed to be on watch, but any alertness she might have had at hand seeps out of her skin and into the air at the sight of Ruby. Just looking at her makes her feel full with weakness and happiness, and she thinks that she could spontaneously overgrow her physical form, and explode into gem and starlight.

Sapphire stands to meet her, and accepts her barrage of kisses with a fit of giggles.

“Hi!”

“Hey yourself!”

“Where have you been?” Sapphire asks, and pulls her down to sit next to her. Through her fringe and by the light of the moon, she observes the dark tint of Ruby’s flush, the glint of white where she bites down on her lip.

“I was talking to Rose Quartz. Well, more like… she was talking to me.”

Sapphire listens attentively and without interruption to Ruby’s tale, and her proposal. They hold hands. With their gems touching she feels more whole than half, and it’s a feeling that she needs badly in a moment like this. She isn’t surprised at what Ruby has narrated to her. Many other gems feel the way Rose feels, but not many of them have the courage to act on it.

She touches the ground with the hand that isn’t clasped in Ruby’s. It’s not the first time that she wonders if the discordance in the earth is their own doing, if the gems themselves have corrupted, _are_ corrupting, the song of this planet. 

Ruby’s eyes are fast upon her. She’s already made up her mind, Sapphire thinks, but she would change it again in a heartbeat if Sapphire were to say nay.

She kisses Ruby’s cheek.

“We are with her, of course.” There could be no other answer. “With you, for you, for this planet… I would do anything.”

*

Garnet recruits Pearl, Pearl ropes in Amethyst. Rose Quartz gathers the rest. Sooner than Garnet would have ever believed, they have an army.

There’s just something about Rose. More than any of the other gems, she’d made this planet her home, and it responds to her like nothing else. She has a knack, especially, for the flora. Rose has a fair touch with everything organic, which had always made her something of an oddity on Homeworld. 

Among the rebel gems, it makes her a symbol. She tames Amethyst, the babe in their midst. She soothes Zircon, chip and all, back into peacefulness. Pearl, with her influence, moves from warrior to general, and comes back glowing with pride and warmth from their little expeditions together. When Garnet announces her intention, Rose’s voice is the one that rises above Pearl’s dubious, “ _all_ the time?”, above Fluorite’s exclamation of disgust. Rose’s is the voice thick with happy tears, and she blesses them with the solemnity of any ritual. 

“You are so full of love,” she says, eyes brimming with liquid. It’s the first time anyone has said anything like that to them. For gems, love is a concept, and barely even that. But no one is that surprised, to tell it true. It’s always been Ruby and Sapphire, together. They’ve always just _known_ ; they’d never tried to give it a word.

Love. Garnet likes this one.

*

Four is a lucky number. It becomes _their_ lucky number.

It’s the number of battles they fight before Blue Diamond is forced to beat a retreat with the bulk of her forces, and the Kindergarten in the dry wastes of the Gobi is abandoned. It’s the number of attempts it takes Rose to heal a gem with the tears from her fountain as opposed to the tears from her eyes. It’s the number of flecks in Ruby’s eyes, the number of steps in their fluid dance, remembered in a stray moment as Garnet barks out orders and the heat and precious stones fly all around them. The memory makes her warm and powerful and her fists grow in determination.

It’s the number of them left, when the dust clears.

They’ve won, but at such a cost.

Rose’s army has been decimated, killed in battle or corrupted beyond even her healing powers. Her grief touches them all, striking into the hearts of their gems. They destroy all of the galaxy warps, salvage what they can from the settling dust, and while they do, Rose disappears. 

It takes them days to find her, planted amidst a field of flowers in what will be Hellas. A great peak rises in the middle distance, and Rose is in its shadow. Pearl approaches first, hesitantly curving her hand on Rose’s elbow, trailing her fingers down to her palm. After a moment, Rose tugs her in closer, and Garnet and Amethyst approach.

None of them know what to say. In a few minutes, Amethyst is the first one to speak.

“I mean… it wasn’t for nothing, right? Their sacrifice. At least we saved this place.”

“A heavy price to pay,” Pearl says bitterly, “for a featureless hunk of rock in the middle of nowhere.”

“Yeah, you _would_ say that, wouldn’t you?” Amethyst snarls at the same time Rose says softly, “Pearl.”

“I didn’t mean it like…!” Her flush spreads coolly across her cheeks and shoulders. 

“We know,” Garnet says softly, patting her on the arm. She walks around them to crouch in front of Rose. She crushes flowers where she steps, and there is a part of her mind that knows that the scent is pleasing, though it doesn’t quite register. Her eyes are fixed on Rose Quartz. She knows that she’s thinking about all those gems, the ones that she convinced to help them, because it was the right thing to do, because this world and its small unenlightened inhabitants deserved it. Gems who are now tainted and in pain, scattered across the Earth.

Garnet touches the roundness of Rose’s chin with a finger.

“What do you want to do?”

One of Rose’s hands is entwined with Pearl’s, accepting her silent apology. The other is stroking Amethyst gently on the arm. Her eyes are all for Garnet, and she has never looked so sure.

“I am going to find them. The four of us, we are going to help them all.”

Garnet nods.

“I believe you.”

*

It isn’t quite as over as they would have had it. Homeworld sends one more ship, one last attempt to reclaim all the work they’d done and crush the rebellion. 

Rose Quartz is magnificent. Her cannons set fire to the sky, and she is everywhere at once with her shield. But as always, she hangs back. She is their leader in everything but this; war was never her province. Garnet manages to draw their fire over the ocean, take the battle away from human eyes and dwellings. She directs Opal’s shots before dashing in for close combat, blocking blasts of energy with her fists and attacking fiercely with the same. Never before has she played for higher stakes, and where they attack, she takes every ounce of mettle in her and strikes back.

The earth and sea rumble, and she roars with them.

She goes down, near the end, just as the ship is on the retreat. A spear from the last barrage glances off her right hand. _Sapphire_ , she thinks, before another one strikes her in the chest and everything goes too bright behind her eyes.

When Ruby wakes up, it’s on a beach. She can’t say how much time has passed; it might be hours, days, years. There’s sand beneath her, wiggling into her suit as she squirms, and the waves thunder like giants. When she peels her eyes open for the first time in years, it’s to see smoke and destruction fading in the sky, to feel in her soul more empty and hollow than she can bear. It’s like an itch in a place she can’t reach.

“Where is she?” she yells, scrambling to her feet. That one earth gem, Amethyst, is there to hold her back with a hand on her chest. Ruby doesn’t know her very well; by the time she’d joined up with them, Sapphire and Ruby had already made the decision to stay together forever. Ruby snarls, pushing her away.

“Whoa, put it on ice, will ya?” Amethyst scowls and crosses her arms. “She’s fine, Rose is taking care of her.”

She jerks her thumb down the beach. Ruby spots Rose Quartz kneeling over a slight form on the surf, while Pearl hovers nearby.

Ruby feels like she has a lump of rock in her throat. Fists clenched, she spins towards Amethyst, daring her. 

“Oh, whatever, go on.” Amethyst waves a hand with a bored look. In the next second, she’s using the same hand to pick her nose. “I’m supposed to be making sure you don’t ‘tax yourself’ or whatever, but I don’t think an entire starfleet could keep you away. Their fault for giving me the job I guess!”

Ruby doesn’t bother to reply; she’s already sprinting down the beach as fast as her legs and the shifting sand permit. Pearl spots her from a distance, already sighing and shaking her head.

“Amethyst…” she’s saying, as Ruby falls to her knees. Sapphire looks pale, more aquamarine than blue, and when Rose gets to her feet, Ruby’s chest squeezes.

“What’s wrong with her?” she demands, voice shaking.

“Nothing,” Rose promises. “I healed her gem; she just needs rest now. It shouldn’t be long before she comes back to us.”

There’s a tremble in Ruby’s arm as she extends it. Sapphire’s hand is cool, and her gem glows dully. Even like this, she is beautiful, but Ruby yearns to see her with movement and sound, with song and dance, with laughter and life. She twines their fingers together, and experiences more than she hears the clink of their gems brushing against one another.

Next to her, Pearl and Rose Quartz are talking.

“We did it,” Pearl says, wiping her brow. Her eyes are trained on the heavens, and she links arms with Rose. Her voice goes from pleased to incredulous to pleased again. “We… we actually won.” 

“For now… It seems we did.” Rose’s smile is very sweet. “And I couldn’t have done it without all of you.”

Pearl blushes deep blue. “Well… none of us would be here without you!”

“Pearl’s right,” Amethyst says, trotting up, “but I guess we’re all used to that.”

If Pearl rolls her eyes, it’s in a fond way, Ruby thinks. Instinct and worry make her rub Sapphire’s hand with her own. She can feel it warming up, just a little. They’re always more alive when they’re with each other.

“What will we do, though?” Pearl continues, looking up at Rose. “If they ever come back?”

Rose Quartz smiles again. She’s looking down at Ruby, as if aware that she’s listening out for the answer as well.

“We’ll do just what we did this time. We’ll fight. We’ll protect one another. We’ll generate love and peace and we’ll stick together, no matter what, because that’s the kind of commitment that we need, that this world needs. We’ll love,” she says, looking straight at Ruby with the smile that makes her feel, no matter how her mind and body rebel against it, that everything’s going to be all right, “we’ll love each other—”

*

“—and we’ll be stronger for it.”

Ruby is holding her hand. Before she fully awakens, before she sits up, before she registers her discomfort or tries to open her eyes, she is aware of this fact. Relief blooms in her chest. Everything had happened so quickly, there had been so much pain before the forced separation, and for a moment she’d almost thought…

“Sapphire!”

And then arms are coming round her, tight and secure and more precious than any metal. Laughter bubbles up to her lips before she can stop it, and before she even sees her she’s kissing whatever part of Ruby she can reach, cheeks, nose, lips. This is home.

“Ruby… I missed you!”

“I missed you too!” Ruby tugs her up so they’re sitting in the sand, the waves a few metres away from nibbling at their feet. She cups her face with her gemmed hand; Sapphire leans her cheek into it. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. How are you? How is everyone?” For the other gems are here too, standing a respectful distance away. Amethyst salutes and flops into the sand; Pearl wiggles her fingers hello.

“All is well, Sapphire,” Rose Quartz says. “The Homeworld vessel is gone.”

Her reply is kissed right out of her mouth, and Ruby is turning her chin back towards her, a tad impatiently. 

“Are you _sure_ you’re okay? I heard… we heard your gem crack, I was so scared…”

Sapphire holds Ruby at arm’s length, studying her trembling lower lip and her shining eyes, and she loves her so much that it's no wonder she can hardly contain it in a single gem, no wonder that she needs them to be two, and thus one. The hug that follows is mutual, like falling into each other from the ground up and the sky down. Sapphire squeezes her tight as the waves froth and skip in the distance, and never ever wants to let her go.

“I swear it to you, Ruby,” she murmurs, “I’m okay. I would never leave you alone, I’ll always be here for you.”

Ruby plucks at her hand and kisses it all over, while Sapphire looks at Rose in askance.

“Can we?”

A warm smile. “It might do well to wait a few hours, but yes, you can.”

Sapphire laughs, and hugs Ruby again. There’s a tender murmur at her ear. 

“You hear that, Saph? We’re going to be together again, forever. I’m never going to leave you.”

She can hear the other gems chuckling fondly, but it’s the very slightest thing, compared to the wondrous thudding in her heart and ears. Ruby’s words are a vow, a promise that carries the weight of the millennia to come. Sapphire kisses her and buries her face in her neck, absolutely teeming with joy. She can’t wait to live out those years with her, as one.

*  
***  
*

Afterwards, Pearl and Garnet reconvene back at the temple, in the newly constructed beach house, in front of the newly purchased crib, which houses the newly made life. Little Steven. 

Amethyst had run off after Rose’s last goodbye, and they haven’t seen her since. Garnet knows where to go get her, when the time is right.

They’ve known that this was coming for a while. It had started with Rose’s increasingly frequent trips into the city, and it had ended on a bed in the temple’s core. They’d all taken it in different ways. Pearl had argued, Amethyst had raged, Garnet had tried to use reason. None of them could change Rose’s mind. As much as she loved the planet, as much as she had loved _them_ , she had also loved her human, and the tiny life growing in her that was as much Greg Universe as it was gem. Rose had made the ultimate sacrifice, for love.

They stare down into the crib. Steven is small and soft and so very fragile looking, like one little tumble would send him to his doom. He has a tuft of curly hair and dark eyes and Rose’s gem, nestled in his pudgy belly.

Pearl inches closer to her. Her hand is raised and hovering, as if she’s trying to figure out where to put it. Garnet crooks her arm and holds it out; tacit permission.

“It’s just the three of us now,” Pearl comments, looping her arm through Garnet’s. Her laugh is light, but a little hysterical. “No more lucky number four. Are… are you going to separate?”

Garnet shakes her head. The affection she already feels for the sleeping child is nothing like she’s ever experienced. She can’t imagine what it’ll be like once it grows, once he grows. 

“There are still four of us,” she replies. “Steven has Rose’s gem, and one day he’ll mature into it.”

“I suppose you’re right…” Pearl’s hold loosens by the faintest degree. If her smile down at Steven looks a little more like a grimace, well. It’s still a start.

“I am. Besides,” Garnet says, stretching her finger down into the crib. Steven grabs hold of it, gives a gurgling laugh that sounds like the song of the earth. That sound is all Rose. “I can’t separate now. He’s going to need a lot of love.”


End file.
